My long-awaited conversation with Cornelia Tuttle Hamilton

This account of my inspiring conversation with Cornelia Tuttle Hamilton is way overdue. I plead intense work and exhaustion, but I feel guilty. Cornelia deserves better. She is awesome.

I have to admit that I did not know her designs all that well. I mostly knew of her from seeing her designs in magazines and books, and from articles she has written, but I had not paid close attention. But when Lisa Mannes of XRX suggested I interview her and introduced me to her, I was delighted to have some time to talk to her.

Cornelia designed this sexy one-shoulder tunic for "Knit Red," a book I've mentioned many times.

Cornelia has written books like “Noro: The Man Behind the Legendary Yarn,” and she has a whole library of books of sweaters she’s designed with Noro. She has a design in “Knit Red” and you’ll find her designs in magazines all the time. In the (current) 35th anniversary issue of Vogue Knitting, she has an incredible Folkloric Tunic made with Universal Yarns. In fact, she has 168 designs on Ravelry.com. Not sure if that’s a record, but it’s sure a lot.

Cornelia started in the fashion industry in NYC about 30 years ago, where she said she was having “way too much fun.” After several years, she looked around herself and decided that if she wanted to get married and have a family, she wouldn’t find those things in New York, so she packed it all up and went to Sweden, where she met her husband and had children. She said life in Sweden is much calmer, much more condusive to family life. But it came at a price. People there didn’t take her work as a knitwear designer seriously.

She said Americans have more fun with their knitting than the Swedes do. “We look at handmade things as an art. We have more respect for it. I think the Swedes remember when knitting was something many of them had to do to have warm clothes. So for them, it’s more of a chore,” she said.

I think the lines on Cornelia's Folkloric Tunic in the current Vogue Knitting would be flattering on just about every body type.

When Cornelia started her own yarn company, though, her Swedish friends started to take notice. The business aspects of having one’s own company was something they could respect. Cornelia herself loves the marketing side of the business. As she described the work, it seems she is very hands on. She loves the design work, the photography, the colors of the yarn — she especially loves self-striping yarn, as you may have guessed from all her publications with Noro — but she said she can’t do them all at once.

So recently, she’s been focusing on design work, and she now has a relationship with Universal Yarns to design for them. In fact, I met her at the Universal Yarns booth in the marketplace. She hasn’t given up on her own yarn company, and she said some of the other companies have expressed an interest in acquiring it, but she is not interested in selling it at this point. She likes being able to design for others and create her own products when she wants to. She’s very happy working with Universal Yarns, she said.

But the yarn industry is changing.

“In the last 7 or 8 years, the knitting industry went from being distributor driven to being consumer driven because of the Internet,” Cornelia said. She said this shift means that it’s the knitting consumers who have the power, not the yarn manufacturers. As a designer, she is always striving for designs that knitters will want to make, and this is especially true now. She likes to show nonknitters her designs because she knows that if it resonates with them, then the design is universally appealing, and she knows knitters are going to want to make it.

We talked specifically about heavier women, one of my recurring subjects, it seems. She said curvy women should embrace their curves. She likes to stay close to the body and create illusions that draw the eye in flattering ways, she said. She thinks the worst style is a T-shirt. We had a good laugh about that. If you look at the Folkloric Tunic she designed for the current issue of Vogue Knitting, I think you’ll see what she’s saying. She’s got a universally appealing design with vertical lines and enough drape to make a thin woman look amazing and a heavier woman look thinner.

When I asked about advice for beginning designers, she wasn’t all that encouraging. In fact, she echoed what some of the design professionals like Debbie Stoller said in the final panel discussion at Vogue Knitting Live in New York last January. She encouraged people to keep knitting as a hobby if they can and just enjoy it. She said that magazines are paying less than half now compared to what they paid 30 years ago for designs. The competition is greater, and there is no job security.

“It takes 20 years to get established, ” she said. “It’s tough to make a living at this, and it’s not a lifestyle with surpluses.”

She pointed out that “it’s all on you” to provide yourself with benefits like health insurance.

“What happens when you get carpel tunnel syndrome?” she said.

But in spite of that, she loves what she does. And I think she might be the first to agree that if this is an industry you care passionately about, you probably will be in it, in spite of all her warnings.

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About Pam MacKenzie

Pam MacKenzie grew up in a real estate family. Her parents were real estate brokers and office managers, and she herself was a licensed agent in the 1970s. But early on, Pam discovered she'd much rather write about the industry than sell. Now in her eighth year as the real estate editor at the Courier News, Pam believes she has the best job at the paper. In this blog, she's on a mission to empower readers to give them a strong understanding of anything and everything that can impact their ability to own a home. And she believes passionately that when you understand the real estate industry in New Jersey, you understand so much more: the education system, economic and racial bias, the way politics works or doesn't work and ecology, to name a few. She invites everybody to leave lots of comments, even when they disagree with her.

About this Blog

Pam explores local knitting groups and yarn shops, critiques patterns and shares her wisdom on techniques for improving your craft.

About the author

Pam MacKenzie
Our real estate editor, Pam MacKenzie, expresses her creative side in this blog about knitting. Pam learned to knit at age 6, when her friend’s mother made Pam’s doll a dress, and Pam wanted to make more. Her mother wanted her to learn how to sew in high school, but she was afraid of the sewing machines, cutting fabric the wrong way, and the potential that sewing would have for bringing down her grade-point average. Every year, she managed to find a course conflict to avoid sewing classes. But the day after high school graduation, she took her graduation money to a fabric store, bought a kit to make a sweater, taught herself to read patterns and never looked back. These days, she knits a prayer shawl every month, along with sweaters, tote bags, gift bags and other goodies. She also designs many of her projects. Read More About PamE-mail Pam